Curled Photograph, by Lisa Hase-Jackson

Mary Thomas, sketched by Patricia Thomas from a found family photograph.

​Curled Photograph on a Table in Missouri

Staring at me from the sketch pad
            propped on an easel in the upstairs
bedroom of my mother’s rented house 
            is a faint unfinished likeness
in soft gradations of cinereal
            and black
of my mother’s mother,
            Mary Thomas.
She holds her purse in self-conscious
            awkwardness where she stands beside
a Greyhound bus. Scribbled in pencil
            across the photo's back in Mary’s distinct
cursive writing are the words Pontiac, Illinois. Circa unknown.
            The sketch achieves dimension
even as the sepia photo of its inspiration
             curls in the turgid Missouri air –
nascent lines of the soft graphite pencil
            settle beneath my mother’s fingers
and speak of loss, imbuing Mary, mother of six,
            with choices she never thought to have.

Lisa Hase-Jackson

Lisa Hase-Jackson's award winning poetry has appeared in such journals, as The Midwest Quarterly, Kansas City Voices, Fall Lines, I-70 Review, and The South Carolina Review. Born in Portland, Oregon and raised primarily in the Midwest, Lisa is a traveler at heart and has spent her adult years living and writing in such locations as Anyang, South Korea, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Spoleto, Italy. Lisa is editor of Zingara Poetry Review.